Wear-resistant, superabrasive compacts are utilized in a variety of mechanical applications. For example, polycrystalline diamond compacts (“PDCs”) are used in drilling tools (e.g., cutting elements, gage trimmers, etc.), machining equipment, bearing apparatuses, wire-drawing machinery, and in other mechanical apparatuses.
PDCs have found particular utility as superabrasive cutting elements in rotary drill bits, such as roller cone drill bits and fixed cutter drill bits. A PDC cutting element typically includes a superabrasive diamond layer commonly referred to as a diamond table. The diamond table may be formed and bonded to a substrate using a high-pressure, high-temperature (“HPHT”) process. The PDC cutting element may also be brazed directly into a preformed pocket, socket, or other receptacle formed in the bit body. The substrate may often be brazed or otherwise joined to an attachment member, such as a cylindrical backing. A rotary drill bit typically includes a number of PDC cutting elements affixed to the bit body. It is also known that a stud carrying the PDC may be used as a PDC cutting element when mounted to a bit body of a rotary drill bit by press-fitting, brazing, or otherwise securing the stud into a receptacle formed in the bit body.
Conventional PDCs are normally fabricated by placing a cemented carbide substrate into a container with a volume of diamond particles positioned adjacent to the cemented carbide substrate. A number of such containers may be loaded into an HPHT press. The substrate and volume of diamond particles are then processed under HPHT conditions in the presence of a catalyst that causes the diamond particles to bond to one another to form a matrix of bonded diamond grains defining a polycrystalline diamond (“PCD”) table that is bonded to the substrate. The catalyst is often a metal-solvent catalyst (e.g., cobalt, nickel, iron, or alloys thereof) that is used for promoting intergrowth of the diamond particles.
In one conventional approach, a constituent of the cemented carbide substrate, such as cobalt from a cobalt-cemented tungsten carbide substrate, liquefies and sweeps from a region adjacent to the volume of diamond particles into interstitial regions between the diamond particles during the HPHT process. The cobalt acts as a catalyst to promote intergrowth between the diamond particles, which results in formation of bonded diamond grains.
Despite the availability of a number of different PCD materials, manufacturers and users of PCD materials continue to seek improved PCD materials.